398 LARGE GAME. CHAP. vm. 



duiker, and a monkey, the latter of which I tasted out of 

 curiosity, and found it not unlike chicken. 



The two antelopes that principally inhabit thickets 

 and thorn scrub are the duiker and the roi raebuck. The 

 former, a small grey animal, may be found concealed in 

 almost every clump of bush or patch of long grass on the 

 coast, and in the upland thorn districts. It lies very close, 

 and is often difficult to see as it rushes away through the 

 long grass, though fortunately it cannot go far without 

 springing into the air and affording a shot. It is perhaps 

 more usually met with than any other antelope, and in 

 my own game-book its name appears in the ratio of about 

 three to one of any other species. They have straight sharp 

 horns, resembling those of an oribi though not so long ; 

 and when wounded and brought to bay will sometimes 

 make the most determined rushes at their pursuer, and 

 inflict severe wounds with them. Of course, this does not 

 occur often, and only on one occasion has one of these 

 little animals dared to turn upon me. It had been put 

 out of a bush about forty yards off, and I fired right and 

 left at it as it ran across me, missing with the first barrel, 

 loaded with shot, and breaking both its fore-legs just below 

 the knee with the bullet I had in my second. On seeing 

 from its peculiar running that I had wounded it, and hav- 

 ing no dog, I gave chase as fast as I could, and after two 

 or three hundred yards, overtook it ; the instant it saw 

 that it could not escape it wheeled round and came 

 straight at me, to my no small astonishment at such a 

 little animal daring to charge, but as it came right on, and 

 my gun was empty, and as for the life of me I could not 

 make up my mind to run away from such an insignificant 



